The Evil In This World
by Laura Schiller
Summary: Detective Toudaiji loses sleep over the Jeanne case, but not for the reasons you might expect.


The Evil In This World

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne

Copyright: Arina Tanemura

Some nights, Detective Toudaiji Himuro can't sleep for worrying about his current case. He lies awake in bed, listens to his wife's soft breathing beside him, traces the moonlight falling across her pine-colored hair, and wonders about Jeanne.

How does she do it? How does she leap across rooftops, fall from towers, cross rooms without even touching the ground? Is she even human? What does she mean by throwing pins and reciting that incantation, and what happens to the objects she steals? An ordinary thief would cut a painting out of its frame or even take the whole thing, not make the picture disappear and leave a blank canvas behind.

Sometimes when he hears that giggle, sees those three long pigtails whip around a corner or silhouetted against the moon, the frustration gets too much for him and it's all he can do not to reach for his gun.

Other times, though, he falters, and he knows why.

She sounds so young.

Every time he hears her laugh, taunt him and his colleagues or go through her strange ritual with the pins, her high clear voice reminds him of Miyako and her friend Maron. Jeanne cannot be much older. What would her parents say if they knew their daughter snuck out to steal priceless valuables? Does she even have parents? Why would a young girl be out in the streets at night, unless she had nowhere to go?

The thought of his Miyako in that situation makes him grip the blankets so hard that his wife notices and stirs in her sleep. He orders himself to breathe deep, calm down. Miyako is in the next room, sleeping, or possibly worrying, just like he is. She's a chip off the old block. The thought makes him smile.

" _I became a detective,_ " he told his daughter once, " _Because I couldn't forgive the evil in this world. If Jeanne is evil, I must stop her."_

But is she evil? That's another question altogether.

He will never forget the change that came over Miyasaka-san when Jeanne stole, or transformed, or did whatever she did to little Hiromi's drawing. When Toudaiji and his team first came to watch the house, that man had the deadest, coldest eyes he'd ever seen, and his behavior to his wife and daughter was such that Toudaiji seriously considered calling a social worker to investigate. While Jeanne disposed of the painting, Miyasaka-san clutched his head, fell to the floor and cried out as if he were having a seizure. Toudaiji, holding the other man up by the shoulders, saw the life come back into his eyes. He did not look like a man whose precious family memento had been stolen; he looked like a dying man miraculously cured.

Then, when Hiromi ran up to hug her father, those same eyes filled with tears of joy, and Toudaiji decided that perhaps a social worker would not be necessary after all.

He strongly suspects that Jeanne's theft saved that family. Still, the law doesn't make exceptions. Jeanne is a thief, no matter how benign.

But if there is evil here, it's not in her. There is no evil as unforgivable, in his mind, as the mistreatment of a child.

He wonders, for the thousandth time, whether he should find a foster home for Maron. What her parents did to her is unconscionable. So far the authorities have seen fit to leave her alone, considering he and his family are right next door. But he can't be everywhere, and his young neighbor has started missing class and taking walks at the most unsuitable hours. For the thousandth time, he dismisses the idea. Maron's a sensible girl. She can look after herself better than any overworked foster-parents could. Besides, he considers ruefully, Miyako would never forgive him if he sent her friend away.

He's asked himself, once or twice, whether Maron could be Jeanne. That would explain the late hours well enough. But it's impossible – their coloring is different, and Maron, while a talented gymnast, simply cannot defy gravity the way Jeanne does. The solution cannot be that easy. Besides, it would break his heart to arrest the girl who is practically his second daughter. She can't be Jeanne. She mustn't be.

And with that thought, he squeezes his eyes shut, tucks one arm around his wife's waist, and orders himself firmly to go to sleep.


End file.
